


Payback is a Bitch, Jerk

by Carrieosity



Series: Tumblr Bunnies and Ficlets - Supernatural [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Human, Bees, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 17:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18665230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrieosity/pseuds/Carrieosity
Summary: Dean and Sam have been embroiled in a prank war for most of their lives. Some things are off-limits, though. Luckily, Dean's new coworker might have a solution.





	Payback is a Bitch, Jerk

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Prank War/Nurse (or hospital) AU; Destiel!"

Once, when Dean was on one of his summer breaks from his undergraduate college years and Sam had been about ready to graduate from high school, they’d managed to push Mom into sighing dramatically, “I always just  _ assumed _ you both would eventually grow up, but perhaps that was wishful thinking on my part.” In fairness, she had good reason for the sarcasm; at the time, Dean had been rolling around on the lawn, cackling loudly as Sam tried desperately to extricate his head from the family’s mailbox.

That had been a particularly good prank.

To say that the Winchester brothers were inclined toward practical joking and shenanigans at each other’s expenses would be to wildly oversimplify the matter. In truth, they had been engaged in a long-running prank war, stretching back as far as either of them could remember, with only the occasional brief respite when either things had started to get out of hand and into the realm of massive property damage, or else one or both of them had decided to make the other sweat things out a little, waiting for the next move.

Short-sheeting beds and glittered shampoo? Those were for amateurs, not worthy of mention.

Of course, as they both reached adulthood and embarked on professional careers, boundaries had to be put into place. Nobody wanted to actually cause trouble in the workplace or perhaps even risk getting somebody fired. Sam worked in corporate law, and a badly timed prank could actually land him in prison if it went catastrophically wrong. Dean was a neurologist—an actual, honest-to-god brain surgeon, so take  _ that, _ everybody who called him “the pretty one” in high school—with people’s lives literally in his hands. Even at his most vengeful, Sam would never stoop so low as to mess with that.  

But that wasn’t to say that their pranks  _ never _ extended into the workplace. 

“Oh, come on,” Sam hissed under his breath. He’d been reaching into his leather bag, about to pull out the Tupperware container of salad he’d packed the night before, and the moment his fingers touched crinkly cellophane instead of smooth plastic, he’d known.

“Something the matter, Winchester?” said Adler, one of the other lawyers in the firm. Sam wasn’t at all fond of the man, but Adler had seniority, so when he’d seated himself at Sam’s table in the office lounge, he couldn’t very well complain. Now Adler was leering at him, like a shark scenting blood in the water.

“I rode to work with my brother today, and he…must have mixed up our things.” That sounded less than believable, but still much better than admitting to having been the butt of another practical joke.

“Hmmm, no lunch? You know, my assistant would be happy to run out and get you something,” Adler said, voice full of fake sympathy. There was a hook in that offer somewhere, Sam was sure, and there was no way he was going to willingly let himself be put into a position of owing a favor to Adler.

“No, he just left…a different lunch,” Sam said. He was still tracing the edges of the substituted package. What would it be? Disgusting or humiliating? There was only one way to find out. Briefly, he debated trying to find an excuse to take his bag back to his desk to eat, but that would look even weirder. He sighed and pulled out—

“Are those Lunchables?” Adler’s grin stretched to a disturbing width, and Sam let his head fall forward and his eyes close as he sighed. Whatever revenge he was going to exact would be  _ brutal. _

* * *

“I should have thought this out a little better,” Dean said as he poked a fork at Sam’s salad. Pranking aside, letting good food go to waste would be wrong, even if that meant he had to eat it himself. “Ugh, kale.”

“It’s good for you, Dean,” said Charlie. “Lots of vitamin C and potassium.” Her chastising words might have sounded more convincing had she not been picking at a plateful of french fries from the hospital’s cafeteria.

“Yeah, yeah.” Despite what Sam might try to insinuate, Dean actually enjoyed a good salad on occasion, so nabbing this one shouldn’t have been a problem. “Just a preference thing. He was on a spinach kick last month. Spinach kicks kale’s ass.”

“Hoisted by your own petard,” Charlie said with a wink. “You know, I actually have no idea what that means. What’s a petard?”

“Something that hoists, I guess,” Dean said. Poking at the salad again, he glanced around the cafeteria. “Hey, who’s the new guy?”

“Hmmm? Oh, that’s Dr. Novak. New cardiologist. I hear he’s amazing,” Charlie said after a glance over her shoulder. “Meg was telling me, since she had a couple of his patients this morning.”

“Meg complimented a doctor?” Meg, one of the nurses, was notorious for giving nearly every doctor a difficult time. Dean got along fine with her now, but his first few years working at this hospital with her, before he’d figured her out better, had been treacherous. 

Charlie nodded. “I know, right?” Popping her last fry into her mouth, she stood and grabbed her tray. “Back to the salt mines. Come down and seem me later on your break, ‘kay?”

“You know it,” Dean said. Not only was she a good friend, but the X-Ray tech office had the best coffee maker in the building. It was a well-kept secret, only disclosed to the very, very lucky. Dean felt grateful to be included.

After Charlie left, Dean took another look at the new cardiologist. His shadowed jawline and messy dark hair might have implied that he’d already worked himself to the point of exhaustion, but the bright, gummy smile and sparkling light eyes said otherwise. He was laughing at something someone at his table had said, and Dean wished fervently that he could hear the conversation himself.

Sighing, he made himself eat as much of the salad as he could tolerate before giving up and buying an apple and some string cheese. He was heading back out into the hallway when he bumped into someone else. “Excuse me,” he said automatically. Glancing up, he found himself face to face with Dr. Novak.

“No, excuse me,” Novak said. “I should have been looking where I was going. Unfortunately, though, I’m not sure it would have helped, since I seem to have gotten myself turned around and going the wrong way again. I was trying to find the elevator?”

“Oh, yeah, wrong way for that,” Dean said with a smile. “Here, we’re headed the same way. I’ll go with you.”

It turned out that Novak—Castiel, he insisted—was heading for the doctor’s lockers, just as Dean was, so they had plenty of opportunity to get to know each other a little better as they walked. By the time Dean was heading out to his first afternoon appointment, he had a stomach full of butterflies and a head full of fantasies.

He’d completely forgotten prank he’d played. The thought of inevitable payback was far from his mind.

* * *

“…and it’s a good thing I got those extra hours of sleep, because I’m telling you, today is going to suck so bad.” Dean was already groaning as he dropped his bag to the bench and started to shrug out of his jacket. “Besides the surgery on Mrs. Gravunder this morning, which is probably going to take a few hours at minimum, I’ve got three different complicated cases that all need to be in the OR as soon as I can find a way to get them there, and…oh, hell, no.”

“What’s wrong?” Castiel asked. He’d been listening to Dean’s rambling as he got ready to start his own shift, but the abrupt stop to the flow of words had him turning with a concerned frown.

Dean was staring into his bag in horror. “Fucking Sam,” he said. “Just…he’s crossed the line. God, doesn’t he know better than this? You can’t just…” He reached into his bag and yanked out a scrub shirt. Instead of the plain aqua-colored scrubs typically worn by surgeons at the hospital, though, these were covered in tiny little cartoon bumblebees. 

Wearing sunglasses. Which did  _ not _ improve things.

“Those are cute,” Castiel said, tilting his head as he examined the fabric. “I haven’t seen you wear anything like that before.”

“That’s because I don’t!” Dean retorted. “Patterned scrubs are for…for peds doctors, or for nurses! Not for doctors about to jam their fingers into a person’s skull and mess with their parietal lobe!”

“Please don’t just jam your fingers in.” 

“Not the point.” Dean sighed in frustration. “What am I supposed to do? I mean, I guess I could get some extra hospital-issued scrubs, but I liked the fit of mine better. Dammit, Sam.”

Castiel reached across the bench and took the scrubs from Dean. “It looks like we’re the same size,” he said. “You could wear mine.”

“What, and you wear the hospital ones?” Dean asked.

“No, I’ll wear the bees.” Castiel smiled brightly, pulling his tee-shirt over his head and mussing his hair as he did. “I like the bees.”

“You…like the bees.” Lifting his eyebrow skeptically, Dean crossed his arms and leaned against the locker. “Cas, you have a consult this morning with a guy prepping for open-heart surgery. You’re going to show up covered in cartoon bugs?”

“Bees are very important, Dean,” Castiel argued as he continued to get dressed. He reached for Dean’s bag to help himself to the scrub pants. Pausing for a moment then, he added, “You don’t seem to have a problem with colorful underwear, though, I can see.” 

“Hey!” Dean yelped, lunging for the bag. “That’s…okay, that’s  _ fair. _ But it’s not like I’m wearing those out where patients can get a good look!” He breathed an internal sigh of relief that the incriminating briefs were only patterned in colorful stripes, not anything more  _ esoteric. _ Lace and ribbons were definitely at least a third date proposition.

“If that were true, you definitely should have avoided the hospital scrubs, then,” Castiel said with a cheeky smirk. “Their fabric is rather thin and light-colored, you know.”

“Shaddup.” Dean couldn’t suppress his smile as he studied Castiel, now fully clad in the silly scrubs. “You sure about this then?”

“Definitely. Here,” Castiel said, and he handed Dean the emerald green scrubs he’d packed in his own bag for the day. “Actually, I think I might prefer it this way. You can wear the green, which will bring out your eyes nicely, and I will test the theory about laughter being its own medicine.” He smoothed a hand over his stomach, admiring the fabric happily.

Dean snorted a laugh. “Well, that’s one prank that fell flat. When Sam calls later, though, we’ll let him think I wore the scrubs all day and that I’m all pissed off. Gotta make him stew, so he’s nervous about how I’ll get him back. The anticipation will be almost as bad as whatever I’ll end up doing.”

“You know, I might have some ideas,” Castiel said as he secured his belongings in a locker. “Did I ever tell you about my brother Gabriel? His high school nickname was ‘Loki.’ Suffice it to say, the sibling rivalry at our house was, er, transformative.”

Bursting out laughing, Dean clapped his hands. “Oh, you have got to tell me more. Sam isn’t going to know what hit him.”

“One condition,” Castiel started to add, but Dean held up a hand to forestall him.

“Yes, you can keep the bees.”

Castiel grinned. “Thank you, Dean. That wasn’t what I was going to say, though. My condition is that you let me tell you the stories over dinner. This weekend, my treat.”

Laughter trailing off, Dean hesitated, scrutinizing Castiel’s face. “Like…a date, you mean?”

Castiel simply shrugged. “That would be my preference. If you’d rather it be a meal shared between friends, though…”

“No, I like the first one,” Dean blurted, then blushed. Castiel chuckled, then reached back into Dean’s bag. This time, he pulled out Dean’s cell phone and handed it to him to unlock.

“For my number,” he said. Dean let him type it in himself, and when he handed it back, the contact name had a small bumblebee emoticon beside it. “I look forward to our date, Dean,” Castiel said, leaving with a wink and a wave.

“Best prank ever,” Dean said to himself, unable to stop smiling as he started to change.  


End file.
